The importance of stakeholder trust and engagement in strategic planning.

• Author: Casey, Joseph P.
• Position: Making Strategic Planning Work

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An early step in any exercise associated with strategic planning is understanding and defining the stakeholders. In local government, the citizen should always benefit and is therefore the common stakeholder for any goal or outcome. (This is the case even for indirect benefits --for example, more efficient internal systems lead to lower costs, which lower the tax burden.) Stakeholders have an investment in government--their taxes, their jobs, or their free time. This is especially important for any plans that are presented to elected officials, who are directly accountable to their constituents for how effectively they serve the public. In addition to citizens, stakeholders can also be employees, visitors, commuters, businesses, regional localities, and other community partners. Their size and scope can also change--when a plan is for a smaller, focused area, governments might need to consider only the stakeholders located in that area and affected by the plan (e.g., neighborhood revitalization).

TRUST IS THE FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS

To be successful, the strategic plan process must earn and then maintain stakeholder trust. When stakeholders trust the plan that is in place, they will contribute toward the development, willingly participate in its implementation, and gauge the outcomes fairly. Trust also positions the strategic plan to be relevant, efficient, and a pathway toward a defined goal. As in every other area of life, trust is not given but earned.

Engagement is one of the cornerstones of trust, and it may be the key to ensuring that an educated stakeholder is involved in the strategic planning process. When people are engaged, they understand what their government is undertaking and can offer constructive comments for improvements. In the words of Thomas Jefferson, "Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights."

The process starts early--or it should. In many states a child can go through a K-12 school curriculum without ever hearing the term "local government." Employees, citizens, and other stakeholders can't engage with what they don't understand, so this void in knowledge needs to be overcome. Strategic planning, therefore, begins with providing an education about the scope and responsibilities of a local government and its people. There are great examples...